The Evolution of Mobile Phones in 3 Minutes (Video)

We’re in 2010 and the handsets have evolved so much, but do we remember the beginning? The video below is a tiny time travelling experience, showing just how much the mobile phones have evolved since their birth in the 80s.

Motorola’s DynaTac was officially the first mobile phone, but there were also a bunch of attempts at creating such a device before it, with the result being handsets that only worked in cars or that required their user to carry a suitcase to power them. DynaTac became official in 1985 and we take a Quantum leap to 1996, when the first clamshell handset went live.

This was once again a Moto model, StarTac, inspired by the designs in the Star Trek movie and featuring an innovative function: vibration. In 1998, things went to a different level, since the sales of automobiles and PCs were surpassed by those of cellphones. In 1999, Nokia 7110 debuted on the market, imitating the design of a phone featured in the movie Matrix.

Nokia 7110 was also the first phone to use WAP and soon after Nokia 3210 was launched, as the first phone with an internal antenna and predictive text . The Japanese created a brand new gizmo in 2001, the Sharp J-SH04 handset, the very first phone with an internal camera. If you’re interested in records, know that Nokia’s billionth sold phone was a Nokia 1100 unit, purchased in Nigeria.

Nokia 1100 was launched in 2003, it’s got a dust resistant keyboard and it managed to sell over 200 million units. Since we’re in the statistics section, let us remind you that every year the US dumps 130 million phone units, while Europe discards 100 million. 2007 was the year of the iPhone craziness, when the first multitouch phone debuted and it’s been extremely popular ever since.

Next came the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor on board of phones, even bigger displays (4.3 inches), lots of RAM, projectors and whatnot. What will this time travel look like in 2020?